This issue has come an number of times in discussions on this list ... there are three or four, maybe five people that repeatedly knock consumerism in general and America as a consumer society.
One question: What the hell is wrong with consumerism? Why is consumerism evil? People throw out this noun as if we all automatically agree that consumerism is evil, just as we might all agree that the earth is round. I don't buy it. A consumer society is the pinnacle of a society's development. It means people are free, especially economically free, which is as it should be. People are free to make their own purchase decisions. I know, I know, somebody is going to object that we're all just robots buying what the corporations want us to buy. But that's just not true and there is no empirical evidence to support that supposition. In fact, the contrary is true. Do you remember New Coke? One of the largest corporations on earth was determined that Americans would change it's cola consuming habits. But it just didn't happen. In fact, Coke was nearly destroyed by that marketing blunder. Certainly in this country, consumers are very discerning buyers. Sure, people buy into trends and make some questionable buying decisions, but this isn't any sort of proof that consumerism is evil. It's only proof that people are driven by their passions and their desire to be accepted by their peers. Truly human traits that are wonderful precisely because they make society possible. And without that impulse, that impulse to show off for friends, to have the latest and the greatest, our economy would still be stuck in the age of wooden shoes and stove-pipe hats. But more importantly, the poor would be much poorer and the middle class would be non-existent. Consumerism is what raises the standard of living for every individual that lives in a consumer society. Without consumerism, I doubt any of us would be a member of CF-Community today. The list probably wouldn't even exist, mainly because the Internet would probably not exist. After all, the Internet as we know it today is one of the crowning achievements of our consumer society. Without the consumer impulse, after all, who would buy computers? People knock consumerism as if it's shallow and short-sighted. But it's neither. It's just the natural state of human existence. And a wonderful thing to behold when it's working properly. H. ________________________________________________________________________________ Your ad could be here. Monies from ads go to support these lists and provide more resources for the community. http://www.fusionauthority.com/ads.cfm Archives: http://www.mail-archive.com/[email protected]/ Unsubscribe: http://www.houseoffusion.com/index.cfm?sidebar=lists
